Archive for July, 2007

Roadtrip!

Published
by
Nathan Griffis
on 31 July 2007
in Church of God and My Life
. 2 Comments

I am packing my bags to go to Tallahassee for the rest of the week. Genesis Church’s pastor Brian Hunter has invited some of the Church of God planter’s to hang out with him for a day and a half for a roundtable coaching group. I am real excited because I love to glean from people but I also get to hang out with Rocky McKinley of Destiny Community Church in Newberry, FL (suburb of Gainesville) and Jason Turner who is planting a new church in Pensacola.

Even better than all of that is I get some alone time with my wife. We are dropping off Owen at his grandparents and we are traveling up together. The roundtable is Thursday night and all day Friday but we are going to stay over through Sunday to see how Genesis Church operates. So Saturday will be all about us. We will use a little bit of the time away to catch up on some sleep too. It seems like we both have been up way too late. I love my son beyond belief but this will be the longest span of time that we have been away together and I am looking forward to it. I know we will miss him like crazy but we need this time.

I’ll download some of the information when I get back. I did start the process of selecting a laptop today so in the near future I will be able to blog on the fly.

Happy Birthday Dad

Published
by
Nathan Griffis
on 29 July 2007
in My Wife
. 0 Comments

I just wanted the world to know, or at least the people that read this, that today is my dad’s 69th birthday. As a tribute to my dad I wanted to post a portion of a letter that he wrote me during a trying time of transition in my life. I thought that there may be somebody out there that may need some encouragement.

“Son, you are in one of the Lord’s most difficult training programs. It is therefore imperative for you at this time to stay at the altars of the Lord. For it is here you will begin to hear His instructions to you. The most frustrating part about this time is to not know what the Lord wants from you. That is compounded by the fact that we can not hear Him talk to us with our ears. How do we get to know His purposes if we can’t understand? Right now you need confirmations, plain leadings and directions. In addition you need comfort from the Holy Spirit for emotional stress and pain.

Son I know this sounds simple but take my word for it. There is a purpose for this season and it is to draw you near to Him. His word says, “Draw nigh to me and I will draw nigh to you”. You are now at the crossroads of the most important part of the course, learning the voice of the Lord. Your heart is broken and your spirit is low and now you are contrite before the Lord. He knows your condition and will lead you if you will follow. The Bible says, “A broken and contrite spirit, I will not turn away.”

Now is the time for you to turn to the altars of prayer and tell Him just how you feel. Tell Him of the hurt and pain that is going on in your heart. Then it is important that you listen, not with your ears but with your heart. He is trying to talk to you but your attention is on the hurt and pain. Thoughts will begin to enter your mind as you pray. In the beginning you will perceive them to be yours, but will later to discover they come from the Spirit within you. These thought will bring you to a place of understanding, from understanding will come peace.

Son, I am speaking from and through experience. His voice is in your heart because He is in your heart. Just be still and meditate on the visions you will see in your mind’s eye. It will soon dawn on you how the Lord’s voice comes to you personally. Hide His words in your heart and treasure these moments of surrender as they are very precious. The more you listen the more you hear His voice. Listen only with your heart when you are in communion with Him. His word will also speak into your life.

Be careful also as Satan knows how you feel and will try to get you to feel sorry for yourself. But the Lord is your Shepherd. Don’t allow frustrations to overcome you, but “…pray lest ye enter into temptation.”

Looking back I know those words (in the King James translation HAHA) of wisdom helped me get long past that moment in time. Thanks Dad for pouring into my life in many ways other than just this letter. I am a better man, husband, father, child of God and pastor because of you. I love you Dad, Happy Birthday!

Saving Grace

Published
by
Nathan Griffis
on 26 July 2007
in Random Ramblings
. 2 Comments

In my life I have been saved from quite a few things in life but very few bigger than what my friend Travis Johnson saved me from today. To paint the picture for you I will give some history. My son at 3 1/2 years old is pretty much completely potty trained when it comes to pee pee. He takes himself most of the time, can make it through the night and usually any accidents are minor due to the excitement of some activity. We still are struggling with the poo poo though. My son does not like the feeling that he has when trying to “grunt” one out on the toilet and somehow the slow process of letting it go in his underwear feels better. So about every other day my wife or I are dealing with poopie pants.

Even though it is not my favorite part of parenting I have grown to realize that it comes with the job description. Last week Owen took pooping in his pants to a whole new level. I blame his mom somewhat for this because of the incredible amount of time that they spend making crafts and creating messes with glue, crayons, paint etc. I am not sure what thought process occurred in the discovery that you can finger paint with poop, but it happened. I thought about taking some pictures of the work of art to send into the Discovery Channel show “Dirty Jobs”. Anybody who has had children would tune in for the Raising a Child Episode. So Owen got a bath, I cleaned up the art and we went on with our day.

That brings us to today. Ten minutes after I put Owen on the toilet to go poop and he says, “I don’t have to go”, I encounter a smell walking down the hall. You know the one, it is unmistakable. Sure enough Picasso is back at it! There are few things that Owen can do to push me to the edge. Just let me say, cleaning poop takes me there and back, twice. His innocent thinking does not allow him to grasp the disgusting nature of his work of art.

So on to the saving grace… Just as I am beginning the process of assessing the situation and formulating a plan for the clean up of the toxic spill my wife hands me my cell phone. Let me say I enjoy talking and spending time with Travis but there has never been a moment that I was happier to hear from him. I had been saved from Poopie Patrol! He was calling to invite me to a seminar and at that moment I would have went anywhere but it wasn’t until September. To tell you what a great guy he is, he let me shoot the breeze with him for about 10 minutes just to avoid having to go back to the contamination zone.

I have clearly discovered a new test for levels of friendship. When a friend will allow you take up their valuable time to avoid Poopie Patrol that is a valuable friendship. Thanks Travis!

How do you measure up?

Published
by
Nathan Griffis
on 25 July 2007
in Random Ramblings and The Word
. 0 Comments

Romans 12:3 “…Do not think you are better than you are. You must decide what you really are by the amount of faith God has given you.”

Do you have enough? Have you asked for more? Have you exercised what you have been given? These were questions that I asked myself after reading this scripture. If what I really am is based on my faith then I need to make building my faith a priority.

How do you build your faith?
The bible says in a very familiar scripture, Romans 10:17 “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” So one way is to read the bible and listen to preaching, teaching or a good testimony from someone regarding the good news of Jesus Christ.

Jude 1:20-21 “But you, dear friends, carefully build yourselves up in this most holy faith by praying in the Holy Spirit, staying right at the center of God’s love, keeping your arms open and outstretched, ready for the mercy of our Master, Jesus Christ. This is the unending life, the real life!”

Hebrews 12:2 “Let us look only to Jesus, the One who began our faith and who makes it perfect. He suffered death on the cross. But he accepted the shame as if it were nothing because of the joy that God put before him. And now he is sitting at the right side of God’s throne.”

So it sounds to me like if we will make Christ the center of our lives, focusing on His word, operating in His Spirit and believing what He says we are on our way to increasing our stature. I know it sounds simple, but yet so complicated at the same time. Can I tell you that it is not too difficult for my three year old son to understand? He understands God’s word enough to know that we thank Him for our food, we visit His house, He is responsible for every good thing that we have, including his trains, that He likes for us to talk to Him, that we have to apologize when we disobey His word, we need to take time to read our Bible and that we can ask Him to make our ouchies feel better. That is the level of his faith and God has given him a lot.

Okay so you’re saying my ouchies are bigger. Are they bigger than God? That my friend is where the measuring begins!

Parenting That Works

Published
by
Nathan Griffis
on 24 July 2007
in InDependence Church and Parenting
. 1 Comment

I just wanted to post the graphics for our 20,000 peice mailer that will be hitting the mailboxes of Weston in 10 days or so. We have also placed it as an ad in Our City Weston (a local paper that is more like a magazine). I am excited about the job that Truth in Advertising did for us and how accomodating they were through the process. I look forward to hearing your feedback on the presentation. The files that I am posting are pretty low resolution so keep that in mind when viewing.
Parenting That Works_Front
Parenting That Works_Back

Everything is Big in South Florida

Published
by
Nathan Griffis
on 23 July 2007
in InDependence Church
. 0 Comments

Today I toured a facility which could very well be our future home. There were quite a few positives which outweighed a few negatives. I am taking Harmony back tomorrow to get her take on it but I am pretty ready to do the deal. Since what I say goes around here…Alright, if that was the truth I would have did the deal today. Someday I hope to be able to teach church planters the importance of getting your spouse involved as much as possible. So far I have found my strongest supporter and asset is my wife. I know she is getting out of her comfort zone as well but she is on board and giving it 110%.

One of the big issues that we face with this facility is that we will have to be a little more portable than I would like to be. We may have to consider staging, chairs, and the whole nine and a half yards. So I started doing some heavy research today with Church-on-Wheels because I understand them to produce quality equipment at a little less cost than some of their competitors. With that amount of equipment we need a pretty big trailer. That isn’t so bad but pretty big trailers need pretty big trucks to pull them. So…you see where this is headed. I am now seeking future members on whether or not they have a 3/4 ton truck. Otherwise I priced them and I can get one for less than 10K but that hits a tight budget pretty hard. So we’ll see.

I feel that God wants us in this location. It is a great location in town. They have done portable church before. The price was great and the spaces very workable. So now we just go on believing God for big trailers and big trucks and big, strong men and women. When searching on-line today I came across this beauty and thought it had InDependence written all over it. What do you think?
InDependence Monster Truck

Developing Church Seminar

Published
by
Nathan Griffis
on 21 July 2007
in Church of God
. 0 Comments

I spent the morning a World Harvest Church in Pembrook Pines where Earl Cushman is the Pastor. It was the first time being in their church and Pastor Earl should be proud of the job his team did as hosts. I am never a great judge of how many people are at an event but I believe there was in the neighborhood of 50 people in attendance representing congregations around south Florida. The south Florida Evangelism Director, Waymon Miller opened the seminar with the topic of Developing our Leadership Potential. Here are some highlights of his message:

Leadership develops daily, not in a day.

The secret of our success is found in our daily agenda.

- What can be discovered in our daily agenda?

1. Our Priorities
2. Our Passion
3. Our Abilities
4. Our Relationships
5. Our Attitude
6. Our Discipline Habits
7. Our Level of People Skills
8. Our Influence Ability
9. Our Vision

Leadership is developed on the foundation of trust.
- Trust is the glue that holds a congregation and its’ pastor together.
- Trust is built over time by demonstrating:
Consistent Character
Consistent Competence

Leadership requires both commitment and sacrifice.

Fundamentals to climbing the mountain of success:

1. You have to get up to go up!
Face your challenges head on.
2. You have to grow up to get up!
Maturing yourself to the level needed to face your mountain.
3. You have to gather up to go up!
You need a team and supplies to make the climb.
4. You have to give up to go up!
There will be things that you have to leave behind to make it to the top.

After Bishop Miller was finished he turned the seminar over to our State Administrative Bishop, Dr. J. Martin Taylor. I believe this is the third or fourth time that I have heard him speak but I feel that today was the best message yet. I think that was due in part to the fact that teaching leadership is a large part of his vision for the state and his passion. I don’t have enough time to type out all of the notes that I took but if you get an opportunity to attend one of these seminars I would suggest that you go. Bishop Taylor exemplified the traits of Nehemiah which was the heart of his teaching. As he said, he is a terrible teacher because he ends up preaching but whether it was teaching or preaching he did, he gave us an encouraging word. I was once told that a teacher is nothing more than a preacher in low gear, and a preacher is nothing more than a teacher in high gear.

The book of Nehemiah is one of the greatest lessons on leadership in the word short of the examples given by Christ himself. Nehemiah’s task to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem included dealing with a difficult boss, selling a difficult vision, rebuilding some walls and the spirits of the people, inspiring the people, and battling a bunch of people who didn’t want to see God’s people or their city restored.

The characteristics of Nehemiah that the Bishop talked about were:
- Nehemiah was first Spiritually Sensitive
- He was Divinely Favored
- Singularly Wise (Street Wise)
- Effectively Inspiring
- Supremely Focused

In addition to his inspiring study on the leadership ability of Nehemiah we were also treated to a great illustration using an egg and comparing it to us as church leaders:

An egg is full of itself.
Inside of an egg is egg and we often times can be full of ourselves too.
The shell is pretty hard but if you drain the egg the shell becomes incredibly fragile.
Such are we. If you remove the Spirit of God that resides in us we are a fragile shell. With the Spirit inside we are tough to crack as we move in the direction God has called us.
An egg can only be used if it is broken and poured out.
This is also the only way we can be used by God.
Lastly, once it is poured out, it is very difficult to gather back up.
When we pour ourselves out we need to do it to honor the Lord. Once we have given a portion of ourselves to something it is difficult to get it back.

The Bishop also challenged us with three simple questions regarding our ministries:
- Why am I here?
- What do you want me to do?
- How are we going to do it?

It was a great time of training and fellowship. I think that we have a lot to be thankful for in this state. We are truly blessed with some great visionary leaders that have more than political advancement on their mind. They are looking for Florida to become a part of advancing the Kingdom of God!

Grace > Stupidity

Published
by
Nathan Griffis
on 20 July 2007
in Random Ramblings
. 2 Comments

Have you ever found that God’s grace will sometimes compensate for mistakes, stupidity or failures in better judgment, especially when being done with the right intentions? Let me give you an example. To protect the identity of those involved I have changed the names and have omitted some of the details which could be incriminating.

So there is this young, aggressive church planter that I know named Sam and he wants to get his name and face out in as many circles as possible. He knows that doing this will pay great dividends when it is time to launch his church. So, they have started a new Bike Night in the town that he is planting in and being that Sam owns a motorcycle he rides up to check it out. Upon arrival he found it to be about 25 -30 cruisers with a bunch of mid-life rebels hanging out at the bar. There were two other sport bikes so Sam’s bike made it three. So Sam went and bought a Root Beer to give him some legitimacy as a fellow beer drinker.

Walking back in the direction of his bike he sees a fellow “crotch rocket” rider standing by his bike. In drumming up a conversation, and asking if there were any other bike nights more geared toward sport bike riders, the Hispanic young man in his middle twenties responded that he was leaving right now to go meet up with 30 other riders. I asked if I could ride along he said sure but we would have to hurry because they wouldn’t wait for him long.

Introductions happened at the second and third stop lights and we will call him Victor. So Victor and Sam get onto the freeway and start heading toward the gathering point for these 30 riders. Up to this point Sam was comfortable with the pace because they caught every light. Once on the freeway the pace quickened. As I stated earlier to avoid any incriminating evidence I will not state what exactly that pace was, but I will say that it did catch the attention of a police officer. Only problem was that our police escort made his presence known by exceeding our pace and passing us until he pulled slightly ahead of Victor and to assure that we saw him he abruptly put on his brakes and came back to me. He did this three times giving some very threatening looks, like the thought of a ticket wasn’t threatening enough, until he was comfortable that our pace had reduced to a more comfortable level.

All Sam could think is how great (sarcasm) is this that, a new Pastor gets a huge ticket or goes to jail 3 months after he gets to town. The other thought was how Sam explains to the officer that he is intending to witness to this guy once he catches him. God’s grace had to have weighed in the balance of the police officers better judgment. So as the title stated sometimes I believe God considers your intentions over your actions as He shovels Grace out the window of heaven. Sam is in no way condoning breaking man’s law but in the moment the exhilaration for the potential meeting of 30 new contacts in a relevant setting got the best of him.

The story concludes with Sam not being able to ride with the club because he was in shorts. He did get to meet one of the club leaders, exchange introductions, and when the leader offered Sam his number but didn’t have a pen, Sam was able to hand him his card and ask him to contact him the next time they were going on a ride. Maybe this sport bike club will never ask this Pastor to come ride with them or maybe they will. Sam never has the opportunity without God’s grace. So maybe we shouldn’t test the theory very often but it is good to know that God’s Grace is at times greater than man’s stupidity.

Don’t worry mom, I don’t hang out with Pastor’s like Sam. I am always very cautious while riding my motorcycle.

STOMP!

Published
by
Nathan Griffis
on 19 July 2007
in InDependence Church
. 0 Comments

Monday is another potentially big day in the life of InDependence. I am going to meet with the director of a school about renting their facility for our worship services starting in October. I feel really positive about this one because they have successfully housed a church plant previously and seem quite flexible. The location is great and if the price is where we need it to be and the facility is as portrayed then I am certainly inclined to lock it in. Obviously there are many unanswered questions and holes to be filled but this would be a load off of my mind if we could have an established future home. The seating capacity of the rooms that they have available will accommodate us as long as they would want us there. Since our intention is to go multi-site as soon as possible, this will help us to manage our size a little better than if we only intended one location. With this location I don’t perceive that multiple service times would be an issue and they were even open to a potential Saturday night venue.

I am still fairly new to this so every potential step gets me all giddy and excited! Sadly enough that will probably wear off at some point but I pray that it doesn’t. It is inevitable that we will suffer disappointments because we are in the people business. I hope to not allow disappointment to steal my joy and the excitement of doing the one thing in life that I was created for. To quote the lyrics of a great Kirk Franklin song “You can’t take my joy devil…makes me clap my hands, makes me want to dance and…STOMP!”

ACTUAL REALITY vs. VIRTUAL REALITY

Published
by
Nathan Griffis
on 18 July 2007
in Random Ramblings
. 0 Comments

Between all the uploads and downloads, many of us are on the edge of technology overload. With the rapid advancement of technology and the increased importance that it has in our lives, it is imperative that we take some time to unplug every once and awhile. Cell Phones, laptops PDA’s all give us incredible ability to stay connected with our jobs and businesses around the clock. It can be hard to walk away when the connection is strapped to your side.

If all of this gadgetry causes us to lose “touch” with our loved ones then what was the price that we actually paid for our high-tech tool? I placed the word “touch” in quotes because many would argue that these tools make them more accessible to their families and friends but the last time I checked a phone call or an e-mail would never mean as much to my son as a hug. God designed us to function in actual reality not virtual reality. We were created as social beings with the ability to interact on many different levels.

I think it is time to stop viewing people through a screen and view them through our eyes and hearts. The screen can hide so much of who we really are. It can mask all of our intricacies and even scars that make us individuals. So I challenge you to close your laptop, take out your MP3 player headphones, turn your cell phone off, let the PDA hold your e-mails for a while and talk face to face, hug, kiss, hold hands, take a walk, go to the park, swim in the pool, share a meal or stare into some eyes. Moments like that make memories and leave legacies.